Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!news.cs.indiana.edu!uceng!minerva!dmocsny From: dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu (Daniel Mocsny) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Sun's Competitive Strategy (Was: Re: P1754 Message-ID: <6769@uceng.UC.EDU> Date: 22 Nov 90 07:21:47 GMT References: <1990Nov16.225515.494@zoo.toronto.edu> <6749@uceng.UC.EDU> <1990Nov21.174938.7861@zoo.toronto.edu> Sender: news@uceng.UC.EDU Organization: University of Cincinnati, Cin'ti., OH Lines: 102 In article <1990Nov21.174938.7861@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <6749@uceng.UC.EDU> dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu (Daniel Mocsny) writes: >>I suspect that Sun realizes the only way to insure that it maintains >>its superior manufacturing is to expose itself deliberately to >>competition... >To be plausible, such theories should explain why Sun's earlier products >remain cloaked in secrecy. While I hardly claim inside knowledge, I have read commentary suggesting that Sun did not see its earlier systems competing against PC's, but rather as addressing a separate market niche. Two factors have changed this: (1) Sun's rapid growth threatens to saturate the technical workstation market, prompting Sun to target the commercial sector; and (2) the emergence of cheap 386 PC's threatened to start chipping away at Sun from the low end. Nobody can succeed in the commercial market by talking about MIPS, SPECmarks, etc. Success in the commercial market requires being able to run lots of cheap, powerful, slick software right out of a box, and without a Ph.D. standing by to provide everything the vendor forgot. I.e., just like the suits know they can do with Mac's and PC's. The only way to do this, in turn, is to pull in the big and small software houses with the magic phrase: i n s t a l l e d b a s e. I don't think Sun worried too much about going head to head with the PC's when they were selling Sun-1's and Sun-2's. The overlap wasn't there like we see today. Today, an 80386 can do everything a SPARC can do, only slower and cheaper. Sun got to its first billion selling a pretty specialized product. To get to its first 10 billion, Sun is going to have to sell something that suits can understand and operate. Apple has carved a substantial back alley of the PC market for itself. But imagine where the Mac would be today if Apple hadn't closed up the box and nailed the corners down. The Mac might have trampled and squashed the PC clones if Apple hadn't kept the price artificially high and scared off the suits by being the sole supplier. Apple would be competing for a share of a much larger market. I'm sure they'd still be in it. After all, IBM still sells a lot of PC's. > Consideration of that suggests that this is >a marketing ploy rather than a grand scheme to flog Sun's own people into >being competitive. (Either that, or Sun's management is simply irrational, >a definite possibility.) Well, I did once read a story of one of the 19th century robber barons, perhaps it was Andrew Carnegie (but don't quote me). As a young man, he was hired to manage a foundry. He came in the first day, met the troops, and asked the foreman how many batches his men had created that shift. The foreman replied "seven" or some such. So Andrew took a piece of chalk and wrote a large "7" on the floor. He stuck around for the next shift, watched them turn out nine batches, and he wrote a "9" on the floor. No cajoling or threats, just the chalked number. Pretty soon the shifts were engaged in a contest with each other, and plant production rose substantially. (Remember, this was in the days before quality control was discovered.) The computer industry is extraordinarily competitive, and this competition proceeds on different time scales. I'm sure that Sun's licensing efforts are worth more to its customers than to its employees. Nonetheless, Sun's management can't be blind. They must have some idea what to expect when they invite in the cloners. It's just like the battles between the ancient Persians and the Spartans. The Persians invaded with a 10:1 numerical advantage, or some such, but the Spartans crushed them. The Persians were just used to guarding a sleepy empire, while the Spartans didn't do much else besides fight with their neighbors all the time. (My apologies to historians if I'm garbling this too badly, or even fabricating a story outright to support my general argument.) What's going to happen when a few lean, mean companies emerge from the smoke and ruins of the Clone Wars, and then take on the somnolent Persian empire? >My prediction: if/when SPARC (or S-bus) becomes a non-Sun-controlled >standard, Sun will promptly announce SPARC II (S-bus II), with loud claims >that it renders all the old stuff obsolete and is the obvious new standard. Interestingly, I read in _UNIX Today_, albeit yesterday :-) that Sun's new 40 MHz SPARCstation II is generating heavy criticism from competitors about having to go to a high clock rate to match the performance of the other workstations with substantially slower clocks. The HP spokesman was saying Sun is now hurt by having a standardized SPARC that is preventing Sun from innovating. I will be surprised if Sun tries to junk the existing standard, since it is trying very hard to build up an applications library for the SPARC. Since software lags hardware by 3--5 years, it seems impossible to deliver, simultaneously, leading-edge hardware and a broad applications base. All the more reason to push for greater software portability. -- Dan Mocsny Snail: Internet: dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu Dept. of Chemical Engng. M.L. 171 dmocsny@uceng.uc.edu University of Cincinnati 513/751-6824 (home) 513/556-2007 (lab) Cincinnati, Ohio 45221-0171